After listening to the Flesh Merchants before seeing this show, the intentions of this show didn't immediately seem apparent. I wondered what other viewers would think of the show. Would its fictional nature be understood? That, I suppose, is the richness of First Friday.

"...areas like Gaza and Iraq." For some reason that line amused me.

The posters were effective. I'm still mulling over my impressions of the show. I understand the directness of the words to make the point clear through hyperbole. Gray areas could lead to unintended critiques. However I'm not sure how this show creates a complex dialogue or does more than preach to the converted. It would be interesting to hear the artist speak.

From Cactus Bra I meandered over to the Blue Star main gallery for another dialectical shift.

"...depicting scenarios which undo the images of Islamic stereotypes represented through the narrow focus of the daily media."

Soody took a different approach, to say the least.

This is only a microscopic view of a much larger piece.

The photographic elements personalized the overall work.

A little blurry on my part, but that is to be expected.

To the left I found these large pieces of work...

...and this woman reading more.

And to the left of these pieces I came across this hilarious foto of local artist Gary Sweeney.

Interpretations of propaganda seemed to be the informal theme for the night.

This piece put a smile on my face though I'm not sure why.

The night for me ended at Salon Mijango's for the Neoaztlan iParty. This was still early, as evidenced by the amount of food remaining.

I listened to a few ipod sets and then headed home into the wind. The rain was a few days away though it seemed closer.

Riding on Broadway I came across the mythical backwards riding bicyclist again. As I was told, he was seen riding in circles in the Jack and the Box parking lot. I tried to compliment him on his ridiculous style. He was too busy trying to get me to buy calendars and something that sounded a lot like "faulk movies."

Good times, indeed.

I Was There

Sunday night ended with a viewing of the Todd Haynes movie about Bob Dylan called I'm Not There.

The movie was better than I expected. The stream of conscious narrative flow didn't bother me. The use of 5 or 6 different actors playing different versions/ages of Dylan gave Haynes a multitude of options, and as most have previously commented, this approach helped him explode the tired biopic formula.

How this came across as narrative filmmaking progress is the best part of this approach. On a different note, this seemed to be much more a product of 80s image politics that morphed into 90s semiotics, a field that Haynes studied. That thought came later and didn't bother me in the least from enjoying the film. Still, it made me think of the film as dated more than it being anything new, but that's getting picky.

And so goes another week on the streets of San Antonio. As always, to be continued...